Document k9kq67ewYK8mDVbkLXoJ9qNaq

; 1X2 ASBESTOS EXPOSURE--SEUKOFF ET AL 3. Hammond. E.C: "Smoking in Relation to the Death Rates of 1.000,000 Men and Women," in Epidemiological Study of Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases, Bethesda. Md: National Cancer Institute, 1966, monograph 19. pp 127-204. 4. Smoking and Health. Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, publication 1103, US Dept of Health. Education, and Welfare. 1964. 5. Hammond, E.C, and Garfinkel, L.: Changes in Cigarette Smoking 1959-1965. Amer J Public Health 58:30-45 (Jan) 1968. 6. Vital Statistics of the United States. 1960. part A. US Dept of Health. Education, and Welfare, 1963. vol 2. 7. Death Rates From Malignant Neoplasms. 1960. Public Health Service, publication 1113. US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1963. 8. Mortality by Occupation and Cause of Death. Public Health Service. US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare. Vital Sta tistics Division, Vital Statistics-Special Reports, 53:323 (Sept) 1963. 9. Fleischer, W, et al: A Health Survey of Pipe-Covering Operations in Constructing Naval Vessels, J Industr Hyg Toxic 28:9-16 (Jan) 1946. 10. Keane, W.T., and. Zavon. M.R.: Occupational Hazards of Pipe Insulators, Arch Environ Health 13:171-178 (Aug) 1966. 11. Doll. R.r Mortality From Lung Cancer in Asbestos Workers, Brit J Industr Med 12:81-86 (April) 1955. 12. Jacob, G. and Anspech. M.: Pulmonary Neoplasia Among Dresden Asbestos Workers, Ann NY Acad Sc 132:536-548 (Dec 31) 1965. 13. Newhouse, M.L. and Thompson. H.: Mesothelioma of Pleura and Peritoneum Following Exposure to Asbestos in the London Area. Brit J Industr Med 22:261-269 (Oct) 1965. 14. SelikoS, IJ.. et al: Asbestosis and Neoplasia. Amer J Med 42:487-496 (April) 1967. Many, possibly most, of the words in the dictionary stand there as representatives of a whole family of forms. Not even the timidest of the linguistically timid will run to the dictionary for encouragement when, for instance, they want to refer to a spell of "hiccuping," provided they are certain that Webster does know "to hiccup." All the tense forms, the participles, the gerunds are assumed to be authorized by implication the moment the infinitive is known to exist. The plurals of nouns are similarly taken for granted, and the forms of comparison and the adverbial forms of adjectives. This phenomenon is generally covered by the assertion that a dictionary is not a grammar and that each individual entry in a dictionary stands simultaneously for all its grammatically possible forms. (For details, consult your grammar.) But is a gerund a grammatical form? Or is it a suffix-derived noun? I am not really looking for an answer. I ask those questions to suggest that the dividing line between grammatical form and derived neologism is both hard to de fine and artificial. If I distinguish--among men--the "hunting" from the "hunted," I have done no more than form (grammatically) two nouns from two adjectives which are forms (grammatically) implied in the existence of "to hunt." But if "hunting" is implied, why not "hunter"? Why not "huntee" and "huntable" and "huntabilize"? The question of when a new word is a new word and when it is merely an "im plied" form of a conventional term is indeed more complex than is grossly ap parent. Take "dehairability" as an example. Can I claim the word is implied in the existence of "hair," or must I assume the responsibility for having spawned a monster? Or take "unequivocably," which indeed was the starting point of all this rea soning and wondering, for it was spotted as a bold neologism in JAMA in the sentence, "Research at the Public Health Service Hospital at Lexington, Ky, has unequivocably proven that methadone has all of the euphoric properties of morphine. ..." Now, clearly, the adverb "unequivocably" is grammatically implied in the ad jective "unequivocable," and this in turn is implied--grammatically of semi-grammatically or otherwise--in "equivocable." If we grant further that formations in "-able" of "-ible" are likewise legitimate without special dispensation, we shall conclude that "unequivocably" is in no sense a bold departure since "to equivo cate" is a firmly established, standard English word. But there is a hitch and a flaw in the argument. "To equivocate" means "to use ambiguous language" and (by extension) "to render ambiguous." Hence, "equivocable" can only suggest the trait of "being apt or able to be made ambig uous," and that, I fear, was not intended. Which means, by (nongrammatical.) implication, that the discrepancy between the obviously intended meaning of "un equivocably" and its structurally supported significance was the cause of the un pleasant jolt experienced by the spotting reader. PS.--It is of course possible, and even likely, that "unequivocably" was just a typo for "equivocally." Alexander Gode, PhD 110 p JAMA, April 8. 1968 Vol 204, No 2 FOS 0009344